Yes, this is an echo chamber. Yes, most things are very samey. You don’t see alternative opinions because this is a TINY community. Like crazy tiny. Lemmy has what, 60,000 active users? You know a ton of those are bots too. Even after a reddit exodus that site gets what, 2 million daily users*? So you’ve got a crazy small group but it’s also very similar in type of person who is here. It’s overwhelmingly educated middle aged men with a tech background or focus. So you’ve got a limited pool of opinions to draw on, and then EVEN if you do occasionally get a different opinion, even within that narrow band of experience it can get voted down or swarmed.

Look, I only lurk here occasionally, and I see stuff I disagree with constantly. I see stuff in this thread I disagree with. But I don’t post about it because it’s not worth it. I also don’t have time to argue a minority opinion on the internet, and my life is better since I stopped doing that. And I guarantee I’m not alone. But I ASSURE you this is a bubble.

…but if it makes you feel better though, most people live in bubbles. I have been lucky to grow up in a very different place than I live, and I’ve found that politically, most Americans absolutely talk past one another because they are incapable of understanding “the other side” because they’ve never truly talked to people on the other side or listened to them, much less lived with them and understood them. This isn’t enlightened centrist BS, I have a side I agree with, but I also don’t misrepresent the views of people I disagree with based on no actual knowledge. And with non politics it’s very similar - small groups beget small opinion spaces based on a small pool of experiences. Whether that’s cars or AI or Linux.

We used to get exposed to people with different life experiences and opinions in so-called “third places”, and we don’t have them anymore. Way fewer people go to chuch and the middle of the road protestant mainline has been subsumed. Social clubs like the elks and masons are far less popular. 12% of the population doesn’t serve in the military with a socioeconomic cross-cut. Kids don’t even have malls, sports start specializations early, and the Internet, almost worst of all, has made it easier than ever to get a social fix consuming only content from those most like you or what is algorithmically fed to you.

Anyway, things are bad, I do not have a solution, but I have a little bit of time and feel compelled to post when you are practically begging for unpopular opinions. So my unpopular opinion is holy shit is this place an echo chamber, and if you don’t feel that deep in your bones you need to immediately drive 2 hours outside of whatever city you live in and go to a pancake breakfast hosted by some local scout troop, go to some small town festival and talk to people, or hell go visit a church of a religion you don’t belong to. And don’t talk to people your own age, or same familial structure. Talk to someone who thinks voting is dumb. Talk to someone who doesn’t care which Linux distro you’re on because they don’t even HAVE a computer, they just have an iPad.

…and yes, realistically you’re probably not gonna make a connection that way without moving somewhere, and I’m obviously being mostly flippant, but at least don’t turn on conservative tiktok or watch Fox News and expect that to be “the other side”. Experiencing a different bubble is “growth” I guess, but people aren’t the bubbles they live in, and actually talking to them is a way better way to understand WHY we disagree, not just how. Again, like I said, I don’t have real solutions on how to do that. I just have the answer to your question and yes this place is a bubble.

*Note I’m pulling those numbers out of my ass, but I bet I’m close on orders of magnitude. And yes I know reddit is half bots too.

I don’t think there’s some nefarious “they” cabal here, certainly not an organized one trying to discourage biking. Occam’s Razor is there are a few different types of people supporting this. Chief among them are just carbrained people who can’t fathom biking for transportation, who don’t realize how slow that is when they’ve only toodled on a 35 pound mountainbike recreationally at 10 mph. Then you’ve also got people who have almost been hit by a delivery scooter thinking “ebikes are a menace” solely because they’re new and something some “other” group of people uses, and so it’s easy to say “they must be stopped” while ignoring the crazy fast, way heavier cars they’re already desensitized to.

It’s not for bike lanes, the law is for “NYC Streets”. It’s a very dumb limit.

That attitude is crazy prevalent. I ride an ebike in DC, and after passing a guy on his acoustic bike, he caught up to me to bikeshame me for riding “a motorcycle”, and complained how he almost gets run over by ebikes every day (I was nowhere near him, I think he thought he was being funny). Ok, sure dude. I’m sure it’s ebikers almost run over you every day, not the thousands of distracted drivers.

The worst part is the dude ran two stop signs to catch up to me, while wearing no helmet. I’ve never seen such a clear posengeur who couldn’t deal with being passed. I am not your safety problem, bro.

It is a ROAD speed limit for ebikes. It’s like no one responding to you read the bill. It is not a mandated governor for ebikes, and has nothing to do with sidewalks or bike paths. The speed limit for cars is 25, for human powered vehicles is 25, but they want to limit ebikes because “they are heavier” and implied therefore more dangerous. It is a crazy bad law.

Did you read the bill? This is a road speed limit, not a mandated governor for the motor. It’s still super dumb, but it shouldn’t do anything to class 1, 2, or 3 sales.

This proposal is for the road, which is why it’s crazy. 25kmh limit on a bike path is fine. A speed limit on roads that is lower for bikes than cars is insane, when the justification for pedal bikes having a higher speed limit is that they’re lighter than ebikes. Cars should have a 5 mph limit in that case.

You absolutely do not need a registration and license for a class 3 ebike in America. Maybe in your local jurisdiction, but that is definitely not the case everywhere. Not in Maryland at least, and we are one of the more heavy-handed regulation states.

15 mph speed limit on roads? That is genuinely the dumbest thing I have read in forever. 15 on mixed use paths is still a kind of low limit, but why on earth should ebikes have a different speed limit on shared roads? Am I supposed to brake down every slight incline next time I visit NYC?

Classic legislating the out group from the in group. The idea that the justification in the text is that “ebikes are heavier than normal bikes [so less dangerous]” while at the same time having a higher speed limit for 2 ton pedestrian killers is insane.

Yeah I don’t understand how this is different than headscale, but I’m very much not savvy on the pipes and tubes that make the Internet go round. Can anyone explain?

Sounds like a smart guy. He gets meat AND all your dried goods!

It feels like the goal is to get you married to one platform, and the big players are happy for that to be them. As someone who’s used Keepass for over a decade, the whole thing seems less flexible than my janky open source setup, and certainly worse than a paid/for profit solution like bitwarden.

Jesus Christ stop spamming the same regurgitated Marxist post everywhere. At least reformulate your “socialism is the solve to everything!” post in a couple ways, or just only post it once per thread.

Slowly but surely. https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screens-vw-porsche-nissan-hyundai.html

Also worth noting, US regulators knew it was a bad idea in 2013, but guidance has been completely ignored of course. Luckily tegulators in Europe are doing something with more teeth: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-tech/is-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-car-touchscreens/#:~:text=Euro NCAP – Europe’s leading automotive,switches will be required instead.

Gross, awful, terrible. Buuuuuut…

Hard to swallow pill: This will probably get tweaked and eventually be very successful. Most people do not like or know how to mess with settings on their phones. You, on this website, are probably an exception but deep inside you know that. How many friends and family members have you had to explain how to change something on their phones? How many have you noticed that NEED to change something on their phones but didn’t even know it, much less think to ask? Now think of all the people whose phones you’ve never even seen.

Of course I’d love to see it go the way of touchscreens in cars where consumers reject it, but I just don’t see it. Assuming they can get it to where it does the 5 or 10 tasks the average user would want to do, this will probably be the new norm moving foward. Don’t believe me? Look at modern macs or windows and how many settings they hide.

This guy fucking gets it. Let’s go with hobbies. Show your kids passion and a love of learning, the ability to have fun, and wrap it all in in emotional support and love and everything will be fine. I have an office with a bunch of nerd projects and we’re building out the basement workshop. My 3 year old already “helps” me build stuff and I hope that only increases. Mom has a second husband of her job in athletics, so kiddo is learning about normalizing hard work and athletic endeavors, visits Mommy’s office and weight room, etc.

The meme is funny. A lot of this conversation is definitely not, glad there’s some reasonable takes down here.

The issue is a lot of teetotalers don’t drink anything because of their existing health conditions, really bad obesity, hypertension, liver problems, etc. So those that don’t drink at all are actually less healthy than the average population, and those that drink in moderation are obviously healthier than those who drink a lot. So the results look like moderate drinking is the most healthy but there’s an (or a lot of) omitted variable bias.

It’s worth noting that not only did I not have to create this meme, I didn’t have to Google that hard to find it.

“ARRRRROWED!!!”

“Ow, my skin!”

We got married in DC and saved so much money on locations. We booked the Jefferson memorial 6 months in advance for like $50 (saved a couple thousand), and a boathouse on the Potomac for $800 (saved 8-20 grand) because we knew someone - wedding still cost like 33k. We were so cognizant of cost too - no flowers at all, DJ instead of a band, bought our own booze, etc.

I think people don’t realize how much more expensive cities are, and also do a terrible job accounting for all the true costs of things. Food was obviously the bulk of it and other big things like booze, rings… But I kept impeccable records, and what really added up was the little $100 here, $300 there things. Hotel and plane tickets for destitute father-in-law, all the meals at restaurants you’re taste testing to see if you wanna have the rehearsal dinner there, tips, food while the bridal party is getting ready, gifts for bridal party, the officiant, etc etc.

I wouldn’t trade it for the money back because I’m notoriously cheap, so I pinched and saved and was super proud of our wedding’s price to quality ratio, but I’d be lying if I said the final tally wasn’t super painful and didn’t delay our house a bit. It worked out in the end, though. Thanks interest rates!